Constancy
by Holly Unending
Summary: It's not nearly as hard to say as "specificity," but it's just as important. Arthur/Ariadne.


**A/N:** Will update other _Inception_ fic soon. Really sorry for the delay, esteem crushed by some incredible fics I read recently, haha. Still love the laid-back feel of this couple.

* * *

When she sleeps, she dreams of jungles— these are the hardest for her to create. After long hours spent perched over diagrams of cities, square buildings and street corners and the perfect lines of rooftops, her shoulders ache (_his hands are pushing deep against her arms to ease the tightness, he's smiling and putting his back into i__t_) and her mind is frozen in the pursuit of pure angles. 90 degrees is perfection.

And then there's the jungle. Trees and wet rain and the sounds of splatters layered with the hoots of animals and wilder things. She'd welcome a freight train here. She can't think right in this mess, in this green and warm and muggy disaster she's created, full of hidden holes and dark places where things she dreamed to be stationary grow and grow and grow. Wait— there's something. She fumbles in her pocket, fingers brush silky steel (_"Made your totem?" he asks, and she shows him but doesn't let him touch. "Chess..." then a devious smile. "Care for a game?"_), reminds herself.

This isn't reality.

But what's more real than the crashing that approaches, the fleeing birds and the things that catch at her feet as she stumbles away into the dark? What is realer than pain, no, realer than fear? Than the electric hunger that laces her skin?

This is her reality- the monster that is pursuing her, something more twisted than a projection, a Beast (_"I thought we'd try something new," he says, and though she can't quite place it in the dream, as soon as she wakes the song is clear: "Beauty and the Beast." "Nothing like Disney to warn you of impending death," she says_), something of her own she's brought in and now it's found her, caught her, and she can see in a flash that in a moment it will emerge and she will scream, in two moments she will stop running because there's nowhere to go, in three she will have to have to watch as her pretty hands and legs become so much ground meat. This is what fear does, it makes us seers, she thinks. It makes us weep to know what the future holds, why oh why did she set the clock for so long—

* * *

Ceiling.

Her hand is warm.

"Nightmare?" She turns her head slowly, relishing the sweep of her vision that takes in his yellow-lit, boring old ceiling, the simple pattern of light on the walls. Then there's his face, wearing that tiny half-smile that's as permanent as a tattoo. Waiting (_"I have a lot left to do," she says. "I'll wait." "A LOT left." Because the last thing she needs is him hanging around making her spine tingle. "I'll wait," he insists. And he does. And her spine tingles like hell_).

"How'd you know?"

The smile blossoms into a grin. "Trade secret."

"Trade-?" She pulls herself upright, sweeping hair out of her eyes. "There are no _trade secrets_. I'm _in_ your trade. Your secrets are my secrets!"

"Go back to sleep."

"No. I'm done for tonight."

"You sure? We don't have that much longer to get the jungle level down."

"_We_, what's all this _we_ stuff?" she grumbles, but he knows better than to take it seriously.

His finger is poised over the button. She lays back down. Goodbye, ceiling, she thinks. You never realize how beautiful a boring old ceiling is till it's juxtaposed with a beast.

"Ready?"

She looks at him suddenly. The ceiling, beautiful? Screw that, she needs to learn to sleep on her side. She needs the first and last thing she sees to be his trademark half-smile. "You'll wake me up, right? When your spidey sense goes?" (_Ariadne is the spider, the spinner of webs, and he is the one who watches out for her, watches over her. He tells her the myth of Ariadne late at night when they're the only ones left at work, even though she's heard it a thousand times before_.)

"Don't I always?"

He presses the button, and her world clouds over to the familiar hiss...but before she fades...completely...someone takes her hand...

* * *

Ariadne dreams of jungles.

She throws her head back and finds the smallest triangle of perfect blue sky watching her through the rooftop of leaves. It's the kind of blue that burns. She breathes in. Earth and moss and green things and wild things and birth and death and growing and coffee (H_e tells it to her over coffee, and well she'll be damned if the only coffee place open within a dozen miles isn't his own apartment kitchen. The smell of java and Arthur are intoxicating when mixed- she traces the warning out on the coffee mug with her finger, while she listens to him speak. His voice is calm, like a lullaby_.) and the Beast-she smells it already, damp fur and warm saliva and the wounded claws...

But go back one.

Coffee.

She slips a hand into her pocket and strokes her pawn. This is not reality. Somewhere farther out and farther up there is a man drinking coffee and holding her hand. When she wakes up he will challenge her to chess and she'll call him crazy 'cause it's four in the morning, but they'll play anyway and he'll win and she'll accuse him of cheating with spidey-sense. She'll put her head down- "Just for a minute..."-and wake up with her cheek pressed against his kitchen table, drool on the wood (she'll quickly wipe it away) and "Beauty and the Beast" stuck in her head. He'll wake her up with the smell of coffee.

_He'll wake her up._

The panting fury of the Beast is closer now, but she doesn't run. Running does no good, she realizes finally. It will always catch her. She turns and waits for the trembling branches to be parted.

_He always does._

The Beast is here.

She looks it in the eye, and it pauses. It knows a challenge when it sees one, and it waits with saliva spattering the earth around its massive paws, hissing and twitching, its tail snapping like a switch. "I've seen the future," she whispers to it. "This is what fear does, it makes us seers, and I've seen the future. You're not in it." (_He coughs with embarassment when she teases that he has Beast's voice, begs him to sing sing sing, and he finally does and his voice is much better than some old cartoon character's. Good enough to make her knees weak. But then that devious smile grows and "You know, you could do a pretty good Belle..." and she can't escape it_.)

When the Beast lunges for her, she brushes aside the thought of ground Ariadmeat and instead focuses all that makes her human on the perfect bitter sweet electric scent of Arthur and coffee. Chess. Laughter. His hands. His smile. His promise. He waits. And she believes that he will—

* * *

Ceiling.

Her hand is warm.

She has _got_ to learn to sleep on her side.

"It's okay, I'm here," Arthur's saying, gently massaging her shoulder. "That one was rough."

"No, it's okay now," she gasps. "It's okay. Now I can handle the jungle level." His grin is immediate and real. After she's yanked the IV cord from her wrist and pushed back her long dark hair, she takes the coffee mug from him and drinks. "Phew, I needed that."

"I know."

"You know?"

No reply. He really likes playing Mr. Enigmatic sometimes, and she hates and loves him for it.

"Fine, don't tell me your little _trade secret_. I can figure it out for myself."

"Oh? Think you can get inside my head?" He leans in. Her hand instinctively goes for her totem, just to check, just to be sure— but he's pulling away. "Care for a game of chess, then? If you're so confident you can finally read me."

"It is four in the morning," she says with a laugh. "You're crazy."

"And surely even you could beat a crazy person."

They play till the chessboard with its neat white and black squares is flickering before her eyes. She loses. "I gotta rest," she mumbles as her head drifts down toward the table. "Just for a minute."

"A minute in real time, or in dream time?" he asks, but she's already gone.

She wakes up to the smell of coffee, and drool on the table. God. Embarrassing. Arthur is sitting at the place next to her, reading the paper. In his suit. Hair slicked back. "Don't you ever take off that suit?" she complains, swiping at the corner of her mouth. He raises an eyebrow. "I mean...don't you ever sleep?"

"Not all of us need nine hours a night."

"Nine— oh my god, we are SO LATE. Arthur! Why didn't you wake me?"

"No spidey-sense alert."

"Why didn't you leave without me?"

The look he gives her then is one she'll treasure forever— in the lonely night, and in the shadow of the Beast. It's a look lacking his signature half-smile, a look of simple and complete incomprehension. "I was waiting for you. I always wait." And when she doesn't know what to say to that, "Care for a cup of coffee?"

(_He sits by her side and waits. Always. He takes careful count of what he knows and he knows that he wants her to have sweet and pretty dreams forever, without the Beast. He knows that he can help— he can wake her when she's trapped and fearful. And he knows just when to pull the plug._ _It's not a secret. It's not a spidey-sense. It's just her voice calling, "Arthur! ARTHUR!_")


End file.
